So I read this book as a child and it was about a cat who lived on a farm. He once caught a mouse in an empty bath-tub in a shed and couldn't kill it, and told him and his family a secret message to say if he was about to kill them. this resulted in many generations of mice that he could not kill. also i believe the mice had names according to mother and each mother had a theme, months, days, numbers, letters, etc. i thought it was called 'martin's mouse' but i seem to be wrong.

suffer-cait wrote:So I read this book as a child and it was about a cat who lived on a farm. He once caught a mouse in an empty bath-tub in a shed and couldn't kill it, and told him and his family a secret message to say if he was about to kill them. this resulted in many generations of mice that he could not kill. also i believe the mice had names according to mother and each mother had a theme, months, days, numbers, letters, etc. i thought it was called 'martin's mouse' but i seem to be wrong.

I encountered this rather nifty-looking three-panel strip the other day, and while I started paging through the archives, the only one I can remember is this one bit about the trash compactor scene from Star Wars, wherein Luke et al. are radioing for the ceiling to be raised, but R2D2 and C3PO are pondering whether they should let them hit the ceiling or just wait until the very last minute and then raise it. (Geddit?) I think one of their more recent strips was about the Gamestop-Deus Ex debacle.

Iulus Cofield wrote:I saw this comic posted on another forum ages ago and again on 4chan today. No identifying marks in the comic itself and Tineye can't identify it. No one on the other forum or 4chan knew where it was from. Anyone here know? I'd love to read more by the same author.

Okay, my turn. I remember reading this book when I was in sixth grade (5yrs ago), but it definitely wasn't a kid's book. I spent a long time looking for it a few years ago, but now I can't find my bookmark. It involved a kid or teenager/young adult who was on a non-earth planet. He helps raise "dragons" for fighting; then something happens, and he gets a dragon of his own. It ends up being mute, which is really, really bad for its fighting predictions. He raises it for a while, and then enters it into a fight, where it promptly kicks the favored competitor's ass. I can't remember anything else about it.

At the book shop, about 4-5 years ago I picked up a science fiction/fantasy novel I can't remember the name of.I believe it had something about engineering in the title, perhaps alluding to steam punk, but I'm not sure. It starts out with a presentation of a character I presume to be the main character and how he/she is practicing fencing by stabbing through a very small ring. The character was an apprentice engineer with an older mentor/master if I remember correctly and the weapon of choice was perhaps considered old and of little use.

I'm afraid that's all I can remember.Any and all help appreciated.

3fj wrote: "You, sir, have been added to my list of deities under 'God of Swedish meat'."

Coin wrote:At the book shop, about 4-5 years ago I picked up a science fiction/fantasy novel I can't remember the name of.I believe it had something about engineering in the title, perhaps alluding to steam punk, but I'm not sure. It starts out with a presentation of a character I presume to be the main character and how he/she is practicing fencing by stabbing through a very small ring. The character was an apprentice engineer with an older mentor/master if I remember correctly and the weapon of choice was perhaps considered old and of little use.

Coin wrote:At the book shop, about 4-5 years ago I picked up a science fiction/fantasy novel I can't remember the name of.I believe it had something about engineering in the title, perhaps alluding to steam punk, but I'm not sure. It starts out with a presentation of a character I presume to be the main character and how he/she is practicing fencing by stabbing through a very small ring. The character was an apprentice engineer with an older mentor/master if I remember correctly and the weapon of choice was perhaps considered old and of little use.

Any help remembering the name of this kids book will give you many free internets and my gratitude... Does anyone remember a childrens book about a boy who finds a clay like substance and makes little people out of it?

I think there was a group of bad ones, the leader had a black leather jacket, there was another with a green Mohawk, and the girl one had purple hair (i think) and she was the one with the teeth with poison in them. They're all really strong and I can't remember any of the good one's except for the smart one with the big head and the brace to support it. The bad one's escape the house and the boy has to run off with the good one's to get them back or something? i think the bad one's also have a key or something?

Trying to come up with the name of a novel. It revolves around a man from a fundamentalist religious cult that was sent off to society. The cult commences mass suicide, and the man is compelled to suicide, but works with a social worked for some time and doesn't. He goes on to make speeches (and sell books, etc.) about his experiences (in the novel). There's some other survivor that's out to kill him, too. Or something like that. I think in the end (not much of a spoiler, I hope - if I recall correctly the main plot is a flashback, and the reader knows from the start what's going on) he hijacks a plane and suicides in the middle of the ocean.

Kirby wrote:Trying to come up with the name of a novel. It revolves around a man from a fundamentalist religious cult that was sent off to society. The cult commences mass suicide, and the man is compelled to suicide, but works with a social worked for some time and doesn't. He goes on to make speeches (and sell books, etc.) about his experiences (in the novel). There's some other survivor that's out to kill him, too. Or something like that. I think in the end (not much of a spoiler, I hope - if I recall correctly the main plot is a flashback, and the reader knows from the start what's going on) he hijacks a plane and suicides in the middle of the ocean.

Kirby wrote:Trying to come up with the name of a novel. It revolves around a man from a fundamentalist religious cult that was sent off to society. The cult commences mass suicide, and the man is compelled to suicide, but works with a social worked for some time and doesn't. He goes on to make speeches (and sell books, etc.) about his experiences (in the novel). There's some other survivor that's out to kill him, too. Or something like that. I think in the end (not much of a spoiler, I hope - if I recall correctly the main plot is a flashback, and the reader knows from the start what's going on) he hijacks a plane and suicides in the middle of the ocean.

I can't find a comic that I've seen on xkcd. It was a guy in a hat checking his voicemail, and it shows all the steps to get to the message like entering pin, press 1 to listen, and at the end the message is just "Hey it's me, call me back" or something to that effect. Does anyone have a link for that please?

It was this collection of vignettes all by the same author (my memory keeps insisting that the author had a three letter name, something like Lum?), that I found in my grandmother's house while I was in middle school. There was no supernatural or fantastical element, and none of the stories had any big conflict. I think the stories had a Victorian setting? Also at the end of the book were some short plays by the same author. One of the stories may have involved a French window, and another one was probably about a kid who ended up spending a day playing in a basement.

Ok this is like secondhand in that I only know the story from reading someone else's description of how freaky he found it. Hopefully someone will recognize both the story and the source of the description.It's about some guy who passes through one of two doorways in a little room that leads into some other horrific hell -dimension or something. He fights his way back, makes it through the door and passes out. When he awakens he can't remember which way he was facing, so he doesn't know which door leads back into the hell-dimension and which one just leads outside. He winds up spending eternity in that little room because he doesn't dare risk going through the wrong one.

Alright, so here's my vague recollection of a book I borrowed from a library.

It's a fantasy novel. There is a war going on, and some race is being oppressed (I think with blond or red hair). One form of gun like weapon was called a "stick" (I think), and shot fire or laser-ish fire or something.The protagonist (a 16-20 ish year old boy/man?) is (I think) the son of a tailor or similar.The protagonist meets a woman around his age while picking mushrooms outside of his home town/city(maybe in a forest, I think?) (I'm pretty sure they have sex there a bit later on... not sure if this is important). They move somewhere together to keep her safe.I remember her having to dye her hair (I thought black) to avoid persecution/arrest, and eventually having to dye all of her hair, not just that on her head.That's about all I remember... I know the copy I read was a red, hardcover where the cover had a picture of combat going on. Maybe on water?

So, very vague... I don't actually expect success, as even my google-fu attempts have failed me.

Tofu-Sama wrote:Alright, so here's my vague recollection of a book I borrowed from a library.

It's a fantasy novel. There is a war going on, and some race is being oppressed (I think with blond or red hair). One form of gun like weapon was called a "stick" (I think), and shot fire or laser-ish fire or something.The protagonist (a 16-20 ish year old boy/man?) is (I think) the son of a tailor or similar.The protagonist meets a woman around his age while picking mushrooms outside of his home town/city(maybe in a forest, I think?) (I'm pretty sure they have sex there a bit later on... not sure if this is important). They move somewhere together to keep her safe.I remember her having to dye her hair (I thought black) to avoid persecution/arrest, and eventually having to dye all of her hair, not just that on her head.That's about all I remember... I know the copy I read was a red, hardcover where the cover had a picture of combat going on. Maybe on water?

So, very vague... I don't actually expect success, as even my google-fu attempts have failed me.

Some parts of this sound a lot like the first book of The Sword of Truth series. Others... not so much. Was the 'stick' called an agiel by any chance? The cover for the first hardcover seems to be red but there is no fight. The boy and girl do fall in love but they only touch once in the first book (not an euphemism, they literally only touch once). It might just be that fantasy novels rip each other off shamelessly and some other one out there starts almost identically to this one.

I read this book about 5 years ago but I believe it was old at the time.

Book is about the life of a time traveler who learns that his race specifically time travels and destroys or limits technological abilities of other species to ensure nobody can ever challenge them. He goes about ending this practice.

There are two sci-fi short stories I've been trying to remember. They're both pretty old, I read them in some anthology.

I think this first one won a Hugo award. Two people are on a spaceship. They've been banished (I think) from their society, and sentenced to death. Instead of being executed, they take their ship (literally described as a ship, with sails (presumably light) and rigging) and set their course to a grouping of stars known as the Snake or Dragon, or something like that, where their mythology says the souls of the dead go. The Snake/Dragon was described as having red eyes (planets or stars or something.). The two people are slowly starving to death, they're both described as having pitch black skin that protects them from radiation.

The other is about a kid who goes to a special school where all the teaching is done through games. Individual games, group games, games with rules or without. To graduate, he has to pass a test (which he doesn't know is a test). He wakes up at a public school, being bullied and the whole school has low grades. He finds a letter to the effect that he has to find a way to fix it. He passes, trains some more at his school, takes a few months off as a normal person, which he can't stand, and goes back to the school. At the end, he wakes up in an office, and on his desk is a note that reads (paraphrased) "Mr. President. Something is wrong here. Fix it."

He has told us of the darkness, He has shown us deepest night. The rage inside a burning sun, The calmness of its light.

Zapheod wrote:I read this book about 5 years ago but I believe it was old at the time.

Book is about the life of a time traveler who learns that his race specifically time travels and destroys or limits technological abilities of other species to ensure nobody can ever challenge them. He goes about ending this practice.

What a coincidence! Just yesterday, someone was explaining the plot of "The End of Eternity" to me.

Zapheod wrote:I read this book about 5 years ago but I believe it was old at the time.

Book is about the life of a time traveler who learns that his race specifically time travels and destroys or limits technological abilities of other species to ensure nobody can ever challenge them. He goes about ending this practice.

What a coincidence! Just yesterday, someone was explaining the plot of "The End of Eternity" to me.

Looks interesting(and I will probably go buy it) but not that book I was thinking of. The time traveling ability of these beings is an innate ability and not tech driven. The can also travel through space without the use of any tech. The protagonist is a young boy who ages through adulthood during the book.

Oh, I really hope someone can help me with this. I've been googling my fingers off!!

This was a short story in my english or literature class in high school (circa 1999-2003) and was about a character(s?) that was either dead, dreaming, or on an alien planet. The whole premiss was that this was no longer reality and she/he was back in their old childhood neighborhood with their home, friends and something about a baseball or softball game that everyone was trying to get them to participate in... I think that the idea was that they could either accept this false reality and stay in the 'past' forever or try and break out (which was somehow discouraged.)

I know this is VERY vague but if there is anyone who could help, I would really appreciate it!!

I read a book once that I barely remember anything from. I think I blocked it from my memory, because it REALLY freaked me out. Time was a major player in it (actually, the title might have had the word "Time" in it but I can't remember), and there was one passage that explained that there are two clocks in the world that are agreed to have the most "correct" time, but they are off from each other by a teeny tiny bit, so that the only way that they will ever be correct is if they are constantly synched. I think the plot of the book had something to do with bits of time that had been gained because of the clocks being inaccurate, and using that time to do something, but I don't know what.

Sorry, I know that's a terrible explanation but I just want to try and remember why I was abstractly terrified after reading that book, and even now when I look back on it I don't want to read it again.

lanicita wrote:I read a book once that I barely remember anything from. I think I blocked it from my memory, because it REALLY freaked me out. Time was a major player in it (actually, the title might have had the word "Time" in it but I can't remember), and there was one passage that explained that there are two clocks in the world that are agreed to have the most "correct" time, but they are off from each other by a teeny tiny bit, so that the only way that they will ever be correct is if they are constantly synched. I think the plot of the book had something to do with bits of time that had been gained because of the clocks being inaccurate, and using that time to do something, but I don't know what.

Sorry, I know that's a terrible explanation but I just want to try and remember why I was abstractly terrified after reading that book, and even now when I look back on it I don't want to read it again.

There's something in that description that seems remarkably familiar, but I think it may just be that it reminds me in pieces of both "The Thief of Time" by Terry Pratchett and "The Timekeeper" by Emily Rodda, neither of which is likely to be the one you're talking about.